PROPERTY DEVELOPERS
Chinese investment urged
Shining Building Business Co (鄉林建設) chairman Lai Cheng-yi (賴正鎰) yesterday called on the government to ease the regulations on Chinese investment in the local property market, saying Chinese buyers deserve the same treatment as investors from other nations. As of March this year, foreign capital accounted for 311 property deals and 804 land deals, while Chinese investors were involved in only nine, the Taichung-based developer said. Lai blamed the gap on stricter requirements on Chinese investors, who can only apply for 50 percent mortgages, must stay in Taiwan for four months a year and own the property for at least three years before selling.
INVESTMENT
More firms eyeing China
The number of applications for investment in China by Taiwanese companies approved in the first five months of the year jumped 120.62 percent year-on-year to 214, Investment Commission data showed. Investment Commission Executive Secretary Chang Min-pin (張銘斌) said many Taiwanese technology companies are willing to invest in China as the economy has been showing strong growth. However, the commission’s data showed that the value of approved China-bound investment by Taiwanese companies fell 24.4 percent year-on-year in the five-month period to US$2.57 billion. This was mainly due to a relatively high comparison base as the commission gave approval early last year for contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) to invest US$1 billion building a 12-inch wafer plant in Nanjing.
TRANSPORTATION
Acer to launch taxi service
Acer Inc (宏碁) and Taiwan Taxi (台灣大車隊) yesterday announced a partnership that could help taxi drivers earn an additional NT$3,000 to NT$6,000 (US$99 to US$197) a month by using the Taiwanese PC vendor’s service that identifies transportation demand hot spots. The service, which uses Acer’s artificial intelligence and big data analysis capabilities, is set to be launched in the second half of this year. Taxi drivers using the service are expected to benefit by one to two additional fares per day.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Inflation spurs greenback
The US dollar yesterday rose against the New Taiwan dollar, gaining NT$0.040 to close at NT$30.401, amid concerns that rising inflation in the US would prompt the US Federal Reserve to keep raising its key interest rates, dealers said. The greenback opened at the day’s high of NT$30.420 and fell to NT$30.353, before rebounding later in the trading session. Turnover totaled US$608 million. Buying by foreign institutional investors on the local equity market helped the NT dollar fend off downward pressure and recoup its earlier losses, they said. Foreign institutional investors bought a net NT$1.4 billion of shares yesterday, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
MONEY LAUNDERING
Amended act to take effect
An amendment to the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法) is to come into effect on Wednesday next week which stipulates that undeclared foreign currency and negotiable securities exceeding a certain amount carried in or out of the nation would be confiscated. Under the revised act, passengers entering or leaving Taiwan with local currency exceeding NT$100,000, foreign currency exceeding US$10,000, Chinese currency exceeding 20,000 yuan or other negotiable securities should make a declaration with customs officers.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy